Escaping the trauma of the Paris Bataclan attack

With just days until the next presidential election on March 21, our team went to the Pool region in the south of the Republic of Congo. Back in 2016, the area was the site of a brutal war triggered by post-electoral violence which saw militiamen known as the “Ninjas” take up arms against government forces. A ceasefire was signed in December 2017, but the wounds are still raw.

In Pakistan, a lack of economic opportunities and education contribute to the dark industry of kidnapping people into servitude. Mohammad Arif was abducted and forced to work in quarries for more than two decades before making a daring escape.

Queer activists in Kampala are using sustainable agriculture to survive crisis and social exclusion.

The blockade in Gaza makes the living conditions of its 2 million residents a constant struggle, disrupting every aspect of daily life. The periodic outbreaks of war with Israel have only deepened the humanitarian crisis, leaving nearly every civilian in the enclave affected. To confront the trauma, Malak Mattar turned to painting as an outlet. A form of healing and resistance, her brightly coloured works often depict women grappling with the complex reality of life in Gaza. She joined us for Perspective.

In his seventh collaboration with actress Penélope Cruz, Pedro Almodóvar focuses on two very different experiences of motherhood. Critic Lisa Nesselson tells us why "Parallel Mothers" draws some outstanding performances and how society seems to be catching up with Almodóvar's explorations of the diversity of the human condition.

The 2020 Beirut port blast was a traumatic experience for many people in Lebanon. A large number sought therapy in the aftermath. But, with doctors leaving the country, help is not easy to find.

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In November 2015, "Islamic State" militants killed 130 people in the course of a four-hour rampage in Paris. Most of the dead were at the Bataclan concert hall. One survivor of the assault has found a special way to deal with the memory of the horrific night.

An author who escaped the siege of Sarajevo in Bosnia in the mid-1990s has told FRANCE 24 how the war in Ukraine has brought many of his terrible memories back. Semezdin Mehmedinovic made it out of Sarajevo to the US, arriving there as a refugee in 1996.

Fleeing war means leaving one's home and taking only the bare minimum of belongings; leaving one's community, school or workplace and often embarking on a dangerous journey to get to safety. The world's nearly 30 million refugees have gone through these ordeals, which often create both short and long-term trauma. And yet, psychological assistance is often overlooked. Zarlasht Halaimzai, who was once a refugee herself, has founded Amna, an organisation that provides non-clinical, psychosocial support to the forcibly displaced. She joined us for Perspective.

During Algeria's war of independence, thousands of people were arrested by the French authorities, never to return home. While many are believed to have died in custody or have been assassinated by French forces, families of those missing grapple with the lack of closure. 60 years on, historians continue to investigate the disappearances and families still hope to learn more about the fate of their loved ones.

In the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea organised a kidnapping campaign in "enemy" countries. As one of its closest neighbours, Japan became a prime target. The programme, decided at the highest level of the Communist state, was likely intended to train North Korean spies in foreign languages and customs.